The two balls shown in figure are identical, the first moving at a speed v towards right and the second staying at rest. The wall at the extreme right is fixed. Assume all collisions to be elastic.The speeds of the balls remain unchanged after all the collisions have taken place.
True
1st collision:As the balls have equal mass and make elastic collision, the velocities are interchange. Hence, after the first collision, the ball A comes to rest and the ball B moves towards right at a speed v.
2nd collision:The ball B moving with a speed v, collides with the wall and rebounds. As the wall is rigid and may be taken to be of infinite mass, momentum conservation gives no useful result. Velocity of separation should be equal to the velocity of approach. Hence, the ball rebounds at the same speed v towards left.
3rd collision:The ball B moving towards left at the speed v again collides with the ball A kept at rest. As the masses are equal and the collision is elastic, the velocities are interchanged. Thus, the ball B comes to rest and the ball A moves towards left at a speed v. No further collision takes place. Thus, the speeds of the balls remain the same as their initial values.